Heart Of A Lycan King
Chapter 30

The room shook from underneath me. Through the darkness, I saw the shadows. I saw them dancing. No faces. No bodies. Just shadows jumping around as though they were dancing. It seemed as though nothing else existed save for me and the shadows.

One pointed to me, just for a moment, I felt like I was floating towards it. But I was held back by something. Or someone. The more I floated, the more I was being held back.

Then the shadow floated to me. It didn’t walk. It floated. Dark cloak over its head. No hands. No legs. No face.

‘Kalisan diyam. èruym? Güńdræ,’ the hallowed voice said.

I didn’t know what it meant, but at the back of my mind, it felt like I should know this. That I knew what it was saying. Then it flapped its cloak, and a two colored wolf appeared before me. The wolf looked like the one marked on Aiden’s abdomen. But then, I felt a bond between us. A bond like Erin’s.

The wolf dropped her paws and laid down, eyes a complete different shade from Erin’s. Dark violet. It stared at me for a moment, before it nodded, or so I assumed, then vanished.

Light flooded back into the room. Inna laughed, a slow cynical laugh that made my skin crawl as she pointed at me.

“Nala,” Aiden called, a painful hiss escaping his lips as he crawled towards me and took my hands. “Are you okay?”

I could only nod. “Why were the shadows here?” I asked, working to have my throat move.

“They were here?” Aiden asked as he furrowed his brows.

“They danced in the dark. I saw them,” I explained. “You three saw them too, right?” I asked, shifting my gaze from Aiden, to Inna and the young woman standing.

“We didn’t, My Queen. Only you did,” Inna replied, turning to face Aiden. “Like I said, she’s one of them,” she added.

“What are you saying, Inna?” Aiden growled, holding me tighter. “Are you trying to say my mate is a shadow?” he continued in disbelief.

But I wasn’t listening anymore. There was a loud buzzing in my head, as though voices were calling to me. I couldn’t feel Erin. Unlike last time, I felt the bond, but couldn’t feel her. Just like I couldn’t feel her during the darkness.

“Just watch her,” I heard Inna say.

“Aiden…” I cried, pushing away from his hold and gripping my head as tightly as I could. “Make them stop!” I cried, tears rolling down my cheeks.

I didn’t know what happened next, all I knew was that the voices continued to grow, and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. They hissed. They spoke in hallowed voices. They screamed. They cried. I heard it all, and with each hiss, each scream, each hallowed voice, I felt farther apart from Erin.

However, just like it started. It stopped. Everything stopped. No more screams. No more hissing. No more cries. Nothing.

I pried my eyes open as my nose picked the scent of Aiden. I felt little tingles dancing on my arms where fingers were trailing on. I heard the loud thudding of a heart in my ears. It was then that I figured I was in Aiden’s embrace.

“Are you okay?” he asked, tipping my head up and carefully wiping the tears on my cheeks. “You were screaming in your sleep,” he added.

“Sleep?” I asked, pushing away carefully to look around. We were still in the same position. Same place. And the Priestess still stood before Aiden and I, lips curved a bit, and her foggy like eyes still glowing.

“Not asleep. They were calling for her,” Inna said nonchalantly as she sat on her chair that had now been brought before us. “Same way they tried calling to her through the darkness.”

“Inna, please…”

“Her body and mind are not ready to accept the changes, hence the pain, the cries, and the thrashing she has done for the past thirty minutes,” she continued, eyeing me carefully. As though trying to gauge my reaction. “Until she does, there will be instances like this, where she feels pains,” Inna explained.

“I can’t feel my wolf,” I spluttered. “I feel the bond like I’m connected to something, but can’t really feel Erin in particular.”

“She’ll be back soon. Just wait,” Inna replied.

“None of this makes any sense…”

“Sit back on the couch and we can talk, My King. I’ll answer all the questions you both ask to the best of my knowledge,” she smiled. But then again, it looked creepy just like the first time.

Aiden helped me up, still cradling me to his chest as we sat down. He didn’t let go. Instead, he placed my head on his chest, wrapped his hands tightly around me and whispered a quick sorry before he placed a light k**s on my forehead.

It may be light. And in normal circumstances, I shouldn’t even feel it this much. It shouldn’t have that much impact. But it did, albeit the situation we were in, I felt the fleeting k**s that lasted only a moment, and I craved for so much more.

It may be insane to say this, but the pull in our bond ever since he returned had only kept increasing.

“How do you feel?”

“How are you feeling?”

Aiden and I asked at the same time.

“I saw you wincing,” I commented after we had both smiled. It is a good thing that we replace a lapse in the situation to smile about. “How are you feeling now?”

“Much better,” he replied, brushing my hair again and muttering a quick sorry before kissing it. “And you?”

This is a whole new different experience on my end. And Aiden seems to replace a way to make me experience so many different emotions in different ways. He knew I wasn’t comfortable enough around him yet. I had only started to work on it. Which was why I appreciate how he murmurs sorry before doing anything. When he first kissed my forehead, I nearly flinched. But knowing he said sorry before he did that made me relax. It made me realize how much the word ‘Sorry’ works wonders.

“I don’t really know,” I replied truthfully. I feel all sorts of emotions. Fear. Sadness. Want. Appreciated. All at the same time. “But I will be fine,” I added, timidly wrapping my hand around him and nuzzling my face more into his chest.

My eyes locked with Inna’s, and I saw a faint smile curling at the edge of her lips as she looked at us.

“What do any of you know about the Shadows of the Fiko forest?” Inna asked.

I shifted a bit, but Aiden wouldn’t let go and tucked me more into him before he began speaking.

“The Fiko forest in itself, is said to be cursed upon. The shadows have never really been seen, but no one that had ever dared step a foot in there had survived,” Aiden answered, and I nodded in affirmation.

“What if I tell you two that the Fiko forest was once a pack? The Fiko pack,” Inna’s eyes were calculative as she spoke.

“How?” I asked. “It’s a dark forest with no source of light. It is dark, and the creatures in it, the Mbems, which are the shadows, are dark creatures…”

“Are they really?” Inna asked with a chuckle.

“Huh?” I furrowed my brows as she clicked her fingers, indicating that I continued. “Legend also has it that no one can set their eyes on the creatures. This is because, setting one’s eyes on them makes one become their slave, or better yet, one of them.”

“Did either of you become their slaves?” She stood up, set her staff aside and tucked her hands onto her back as she began walking in circles, her waist chains jiggling with each move. “You both saw the shadows, and they spoke to you both. Yet, none of you became their slave.”

“But the mark…”

“The mark on you, My King, is the mark of the Mbems. But you aren’t a slave.”

“What do you mean when you say I am one of them?” I asked, pushing from Aiden and sitting up properly.

“Because you are, My Queen. That is why your mate carries your mark.”

“Stop going in circles and speak!” Aiden growled in a voice I never heard him use.

The Priestess bowed her head immediately. From where I sat, I could see her body shaking. Did he just use his Lycan-Alpha voice?

“The Queen has the b***d of the Mbems running through her veins. She had the strong smell of the Malakari bloodline, but she isn’t a full Malakarian,” Inna said, her voice shaking a bit.

“That is because my mum is a Mandalian,” I rushed to say.

“So you say, My Queen. To get straight to the point, you are not a full bred wolf,” she announced.

“Excuse me?” My body was already shaking by then, and ever so slowly, I was beginning to feel Erin.

“I have no proper explanation for this, My Queen. But you have the b***d of three packs running in your veins. Malakarian. Mandalians. And the Mbems.”

“How so?” I asked, my voice high pitched. The shaking in my body had gotten, but that was before Aiden had reached for my hand, turned my palm and kissed it. From the back of my mind, I could feel the tension rise.

“I wish I knew how this connection happened, but this is all up to you to replace out. Do you have other family relations? Your parents? Siblings?”

“My parents are late. Same with my maternal grandparents. I have never met my paternal grandparents and Abba hardly ever talks about them. He never answered me properly when I asked,” I explained.

“Then I guess you have lots of work in replaceing your heritage before we can make sense of any of this. One thing I know for sure though, is that this union was made for a reason. You two are either destined to save the Mbems, or destroy them forever.”

“If I really am one of them, that should explain why they said a connection between us is there,” I said, unable to believe what I was hearing.

“Most certainly. We still can’t be sure of anything since we have no one that knows exactly where your heritage starts from,” Inna answered.

“What do you mean when you say the Fiko forest was once a pack?” Aiden asked.

“The Fiko forest was once a pack like all the twelve packs we have around. It was the thirteenth pack and a close neighbor to the Malakarians. Like every pack has a gift and what they specialize in, the Fikoians were mostly two colored wolves and have the ability to manipulate the power other packs possess. This made them the strongest at that time, and they never married outside their pack.

“Oftentimes, if any of them replaces a mate outside the pack, they reject them, and take a chosen mate from within their pack. Because they could manipulate the pain, it was easier for them to endure it and constantly did it, while those rejected suffered the pain and mostly ended up giving up on life. This angered the Lycan King, who was My King’s great grandfather. He took matters in his own hands after weeks of sacrificing to the Moon Goddess and calling for her help. With no response from her, he attacked the pack.

“One thing the Fikoains failed to notice was that they couldn’t manipulate their powers over Lycans, regardless of how powerful they were. The Lycan King killed most of the males and captured the females. He sent five females to each pack and asked each Alpha to pick one and mate with her.

“The women resisted, and they ended up being forcefully taken. This broke a lot of them, and they never lived past three days. One of them, however, survived. She was the Luna of the pack. She met with a powerful witch dragon, although I wasn’t sure about that, who helped her cast a spell on her pack to protect the remaining women she had saved. They were mostly unmated wolves that she had hidden during the attack. The spell was casted, and the pack turned into a deadly forest.

“This disrupted the flow, peace, and harmony between the packs and the Moon Goddess cursed the Lycans, for the offense made by their king. She took away the female Lycans around then, the same way the King took away the female wolves from the Fiko pack,” she finally finished.

“This isn’t available in our history books,” Aiden noted.

“Not everyone knows the real story. Even I am not sure of it as it was what I learnt from my mistress before her death. I may be wrong, especially regarding the part why the Lycans received the wrath of the Goddess when they were only trying to help.”

“So why is a relationship between a Malakarian and a Lycan considered to be a bad thing?” I asked about one of the issues that had been bugging me.

“Fiko’s only close friends during that time were the Malakarians. It’s been said that the Malakarians and the Royal House of the Lycans had never mated. Once, the Beta’s daughter was mated to the Lycan prince, who rejected her after impregnating her. That caused a huge rift between the two, and the Goddess promised not to mate anyone from the two breeds together. I was surprised to see she was your mate, but I understand now that she isn’t a full Malakarian.”

“So, does me being a two-colored wolf make me a special wolf of some kind?” I asked. “Does that mean I’m not cursed?”

“By special wolf, do you mean you possess hidden powers?”

I nodded.

“No, My Queen,” she chuckled. “You are an Omega just like you see yourself. I didn’t feel any dormant power when I touched you. It wasn’t there. Also, the rumors about a two colored wolf being a curse began when the Fikoians had vanished. That was made up to clear the remaining ones that had tried fleeing. This has happened over the past 300 years.

“Oh, I thought I would turn out to be a powerful wolf…”

“Power doesn’t always have to be physical, My Queen. It also doesn’t have to be that one possesses supernatural powers. Just because you have no hidden powers doesn’t mean you…”

“No, I wasn’t thinking that way. I was just wondering if that was possible considering all the connections you’ve mentioned, although, we have no idea how it happened.”

“I have another question. On the second day I met Aiden, I went into heat.”

“You did?” Inna asked.

“Yes,” Aiden confirmed. “She’s fine in the mornings and afternoons. But once it was evening and night time, she became…” he trailed off, interlocking our fingers. I loved the little gestures he made in between this heavy discussion. “It lasted for three painful days.”

“That isn’t the work of the Mbems. There must be something else somewhere,” Inna noted.

“Is this something you can replace out?” Aiden pressed on.

“I’ll need time,” Inna affirmed.

“And what would you say about the mark? And why am I the only one with it?” Aiden said.

“Like I said, it is a mark of the Mbems, and you have it because your mate is one of them in a way. The Mbems carry marks of their mates…”

“That is not my wolf though. I knew it the moment I saw it,” I interrupted.

“That explains why you both felt pain when I touched it. I can’t explain the reason behind that without replaceing how the connection between you was made. All I’m going to say is that, the bond between you two, despite not being marked, will continue to get stronger with each passing day. And until the day you consume the mate bond, it will continue growing. That is one way the Mbems had used to keep their mates faithful. Although you said that isn’t your wolf, I’m certain there has to be something there,” Inna Laniya said as she sighed and walked back to her seat. “There must be a reason the mark appeared on the King without you two mating though and I just can’t figure out what that is.”

I rubbed my temples, tension ebbing into them as I tried to take in everything. Everything was too much. And every time I think I’ve found something out, it turns out to be a dead end.

“The shadows I saw…”

“Aren’t the real Mbems, just their minions,” she nodded. “Both of you didn’t see the real Mbems, but rather, their minions.”

“Ahh,” I looked at Aiden and we both nodded.

“How about the voices I heard and the wolf that showed up in the dark? The same wolf on Aiden’s abdomen.”

“You had a wolf vision?” Inna asked, her eyes widening.

I nodded, not liking the way her expression suddenly changed.

She shut her eyes, for a moment, I saw her body shaking. When she pried her eyes open, they were completely black, with no hint of the whitish fog they always had.

“Do you remember anything the voices you heard say?” she continued.

I bobbed my head. The words had been itched at the back of my mind like they belonged there. I repeated the words and Inna’s eyes widened more.

“My King, whatever this is, is beyond my power. I will contact my sister from Jaro pack. She should know more.” Then she stood up, bowed and hit her staff once. “I need to work on something. I’ll contact you before or after the ceremony, My King. Just know that, whatever happens, the Mbems would never harm one of their own.”

As we walked outside hand in hand, I felt Erin stir from within me. Through the hazy gaze of our bond, I saw her looking at me with a rather strange glow in her eyes. Dark violet. And then she spoke.

‘Kalisan diyam.’

Then she collapsed.